ten to your observations, is dull
work. He looked again at the sleeping pair, and then he gave in.

"It can't be denied," he muttered, slowly nodding his head, "that even
your practical men sometimes stumble on a good idea."

Then curling up his long legs, and folding his arms under his head, his
restless brain was soon forming fantastic shapes for itself in the
mysterious land of dreams.

But his slumbers were too much disturbed to last long. After an uneasy,
restless, unrefreshing attempt at repose, he sat up at about half-past
seven o'clock, and began stretching himself, when he found his
companions already awake and discussing the situation in whispers.

The Projectile, they were remarking, was still pursuing its way from the
Moon, and turning its conical point more and more in her direction. This
latter phenomenon, though as puzzling as ever, Barbican regarded with
decided pleasure: the more directly the conical summit pointed to the
Moon at the exact moment, the more directly towards her surface would
the rockets communicate their reactionary motion.

Nearly seventeen hours, however, were still to elapse before that
moment, that all important moment, would arrive.

The time began to drag. The excitement produced by the Moon's vicinity
had died out. Our travellers, though as daring and as confident as ever,
could not help feeling a certain sinking of heart at the approach of the
moment for deciding either alternative of their doom in this
world--their fall to the Moon, or their eternal imprisonment in a
changeless orbit. Barbican and M'Nicholl tried to kill time by revising
their calculations and putting their notes in order; Ardan, by
feverishly walking back and forth from window to window, and stopping
for a second or two to throw a nervous glance at the cold, silent and
impassive Moon.

Now and then reminiscences of our lower world would flit across their
brains. Visions of the famous Gun Club rose up before them the oftenest,
with their dear friend Marston always the central figure. What was his
bustling, honest, good-natured, impetuous heart at now? Most probably he
was standing bravely at his post on the Rocky Mountains, his eye glued
to the great Telescope, his whole soul peering through its tube. Had he
seen the Projectile before it vanished behind the Moon's north pole?
Could he have caught a glimpse of it at its reappearance? If so, could
he have concluded it to be the satellite of a satellite! Cou